REVIEW: @The_xx manages intimacy in a stadium full of people

Singapore Indoor Stadium – The stage is shrouded in the purple-pink mist of a deliberate, hazy glow. The overhead spotlights find themselves enraptured in a dance of winking yellow. Beneath them, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim stand downstage, with Jamie Smith (better known as Jamie xx , whom we spoke to on Thursday) on an elevated platform at the back, safe behind a clean, glossy set-up. From our view above, the standing pit is a sea of bobbing heads and swaying hands, lifted almost delicately, as if trying to capture Croft and Sim’s lilting, lulling croons in a gentle, palmed embrace. The show we’re at, courtesy of Secret Sounds Asia , is in celebration of the xx ’s third full-length release, I See You , and the performance underway is the evening’s live rendition of one of the British indie pop band’s older singles, “VCR”. It’s a sentimental track in more ways than on...